About this Blog

"In the future everybody will be world-famous for 15 minutes." So said the bleached-out, late lamented artist Andy Warhol. Having lived and worked in New York City, Warhol came to fully grasp the hold celebrity has on us. In this very famous sentence, he meant to point out that in a culture fixated on fame, many people will suddenly flash brightly onto the public screen, then--poof--will just as quickly disappear from public view--like shooting stars. Other individuals derive their celebrity from one stellar accomplishment (one hit song, one iconic role, etc.) that they never again match.

This blog is devoted to the one part of our celebrity culture that no one has written much about: temporary/one-shot celebrities.

The pace of modern life has quickened, and now we hear people speaking of someone's 15 seconds of fame. These "celebrities with a lower-case c" who will appear in this blog sometimes come to us from the world of entertainment, sometimes from the world of news. All are fascinating.

The need of our communications media for a continual stream of new material assures that we will have no end of colorful people who go quickly, where celebrity is concerned, from zero to hero (or villain) and back to zero. Now you see 'em, now you don't. What a crazy world, eh?

Temporary celebrities coming from the world of entertainment include one-hit recording artists; TV and movie icons who, although they might have had a great many accomplishments in their career, are remembered for one big role; standouts of reality TV; sports figures remembered for one remarkable accomplishment; and people whose celebrity came from one big role in a commercial or print ad.

News-based temporary celebrities come in many forms: mass/serial killers, other murderers of special note, sex-crime offenders, disgraced figures of government/military/business/media/religion, spies/traitors, hoaxers, femmes/hommes fatale, heroes, whistle blowers, inventors/innovators, and victims.

Celebrity Blogsburg will consider each category in turn.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Advertising icon Hallie Kate Eisenberg

For many TV viewers, the name Hallie Kate Eisenberg will bring to mind the cute, dimpled, curly haired little Pepsi Girl of the late 1990s.

Younger viewers might instead remember her from their visits to Regal Cinemas. For this client, little Hallie swaggered John Wayne style into a Western saloon amd warned the ornery galoots there (and the theater audience) to keep their cell phones holstered, and not to fight or cuss. This filmed segment pretty much strained the outer limits of cuteness, it must be admitted.

Still, Hallie's brand of bankrollable cuteness doesn't come along every day, and she began guesting and acting on TV shows in 1997. At this writing, she is no longer a cute little kid, but is nevertheless a cute teenager.

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